


the code ends somewhere

by spocklee



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 09:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6513058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spocklee/pseuds/spocklee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>samara observes shepard and thinks about a future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the code ends somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> just a short bittersweet thing i wrote awhile ago and forgot about. set in mass effect 2

Samara has not spoken to many people in the last few years, so it’s with a caution that her life requires in every measure when she decides that Shepard is funny. Samara could be proved wrong, could find the rug pulled out from under her feet if one day it’s revealed that Shepard is quite boring. It is not something that needs to be written down or factored into an investigation though, so it’s alright if she thinks this errant thought privately to herself. Shepard is funny.

Shepard is telling her about the time she tried to land a terrain vehicle on a turian’s face. To be more accurate, Joker was the one shooting the vehicle out of the Normandy and onto the planet, but there is something vital about the fact that Shepard was the person inside of it.

“-we missed though. He ran off. He thought he got away once he went through a mass relay, but he didn’t think we were gonna floor the Mako through at the last second-“

“Shepard, I think I misunderstood. You drove a car through a relay?”

Shepard gets a ridiculous grin on her face, one that Samara knows is impossible for herself to replicate, “As if you’ve never done something outrageous.”

“I like to think I’m a fairly laidback person.”

Shepard’s brows furrow for a second, and Samara knows that Shepard thinks she’s being serious. Then she realizes, and laughs.

“You’re funny, Samara.”

Samara smiles, small and gentle.

\---

Shepard, like all humans, is young. Older for her species; late 40s. The average lifespan for a human is 110 years, the average lifespan for an Alliance soldier is 60 years. Samara knows this because she has looked it up in order to better understand humans, and their motivations to join careers that would make their short lives even shorter.

“Shepard, may I ask something?”

They are sitting in front of the observation glass. At the moment the Normandy is orbiting a deep lavender planet, running surveys. Despite the calming color, Samara knows the atmosphere must be quite toxic. The name of the planet escapes her, but the slip-up does not bother her. She has made enough mistakes to know how to let go of the ones that don’t matter.

“Sure. What’s on your mind?” Shepard’s has her legs stretched out in front of her, as she reaches forward to touch her palms to her toes. Shepard rarely seems to sit at ease; every moment must be efficiently used.

“Why have you not left the Alliance?”

Shepard’s face is wrinkled. Samara rarely notices unless Shepard is standing next to Chambers, who is a much younger human.

“I figured you would ask me why I joined in the first place.”

“There are many reasons to start something. From what I can tell though, there become quite a lot more reasons to leave,” a mission at Jacob's request had been earlier. He reminds Samara of Rila.

“I guess… I don’t know. It’s a little too late now that I’m a Spectre. And I sort of sold my soul to the devil recently,” Shepard smiles like it’s a joke, gesturing at the Cerberus ship they’re inside of.

“There are a million planets in the world. I doubt they would be able to find you if you disappeared. You have enough money to retire for the next 70 years.”

“Ha… you sound like Jack telling me to run off and become a pirate. Would the Code even let you do something like that?”

Samara blinks. The purple planet is still there, although she had stopped seeing it for a moment. She had not considered that Shepard would expect her to join her in such an escape.

“Of course not. I supposed it’s just a habit of considering all the available options.”

Shepard exhales, and her wrists go past her toes. She pulls back her arms, lies back, and lifts her legs perpendicular to the floor. Samara senses her hesitate before speaking to the ceiling.

“I don’t know a lot about the Code… but I think it’s like that. I can’t leave until it’s over.”

Samara nods, even though she already guessed. She had been hoping she had guessed wrong.

\---

Shepard and the krogan child, Grunt, are laughing about something. Their grins are positively vicious, all teeth charmingly visible. They’re waiting for the shuttle to pick them up. Samara is waiting off to the side, sitting on a crate that survived the recent firefight and meditating.

She opens her eyes when she hears the shuttle approaching, and notices a suddenly concerned Shepard licking her thumb. Samara watches tensely as she brings her hand up to the krogan’s face. Grunt does not react violently though when the thumb brushes roughly against his cheek; he only slumps his massive shoulders and whines.

“Shepard.”

“You have dirt on your face.”

“So do you. Also blood. Come on.”

Samara sees Shepard catch herself, her hand pausing as she realizes what she’s doing. Then she smiles. The first human Spectre, Commander, Krogan Battlemaster, back from the dead: bashful about a bizarrely tender display of affection.

\---

It may be a disgrace to her asari pride, but Samara considers while doing breathing exercises that if humans have shorter lives, they must also mature faster. It takes asari centuries to put aside their passions and desires, to become stable and decisive adults. Shepard- humans, don’t have that kind of time.

 ---

Samara finds herself anxious around Jack and Grunt. She has too much discipline to decline missions with them, and it is not a simple itch under her skin watching them break laws. It is something more frustratingly grey. They both love killing, they have no respect for any law. Jack has been trained to find joy in it, and Grunt is born to laugh as he destroys whatever crawls towards him.

So why is it that they listen to Shepard?

How can Shepard coo over a bloodthirsty krogan warrior whose first act of life was to try and kill her? How can a merciless pirate throw her arm around Shepard’s shoulders as if her morality is contagious? How can there be be trust and even love between the two? What is the difference between herself and this human?

She lies awake and begs the thought to leave her: if Shepard had been Mirala’s mother, would things have been different?

\---

Shepard glances at her once after a mission, and the way her gaze drifts down her body as her chest heaves from exhaustion makes something in Samara finally snap.

That night she lies in the dark of the mat she has set up on the floor. She had already stood up to check the lock on the door, slowly and deliberately as if to deny herself the reason why.

She lies on the mat and lets her hands drift over her own body as if she’s still only a few decades old, pretending they are someone else’s. When she dreams, Shepard’s hands replace her own, breathing Samara’s name against her skin even as Samara murmurs hers. The Shepard in her dream is closer than she can allow in reality. This Shepard will live for 110 years and a few months, will sit down without touching her toes and will sleep without fears. This Shepard and this Samara are strangers who do not exist when she is awake.

\---

Maybe humans don’t mature faster, and their more selfish desires are still trapped there under the surface, in a body aging too quickly.

Maybe Samara is projecting.

\---

Shepard sits beside her in the observation deck. Samara sees out of the corner of her eye that she adapts the same pose as her; legs folded flat against the ground and the soles of her feet pressed against each other. Shepard’s back is completely straight as she looks out the reinforced panel of glass separating them from the vacuum of space. Samara had heard about how Shepard had died, suffocating in nothing, and wonders if it is uncomfortable for Shepard to be in this room. The commander is definitely frowning, and tense, but she has been since the Collector base mission had been decided on.

They probably only have a few days left.

Minutes pass quietly. Samara has not spent so much time with another in centuries, and there is a pain of appreciation in her chest for the silence and peace Shepard’s company gives her. Her mind is clear in her presence, and the ache of her past is dulled. She is no longer unsure.

“Samara… Can I ask you something?”

She can feel it in her own voice, in the way the words come from the pit of her stomach, “Of course, Shepard. Anything.”

Shepard exhales through her nose, looking at the stars now as if it pains her, “After all this… will we still… what do you plan on doing?”

“I think I will visit my other two daughters. I have been gone too long from them.”

“After that?”

Samara tilts her head, considering what’s happening beneath the conversation, “My oath to you will be over. I’m sure there will still be work to done.”

Shepard hums and says nothing. A vague response for a vague answer. Samara knows this isn’t where either of them want the conversation to end.

“I will always be led by the Code, and I cannot stray until the war is over. But someday, somewhere- Shepard. Please do not think that I feel nothing towards you, that I do not find myself thinking of you every day,” Samara can feel herself turning to look at her and stops herself, forcing her eyes back to the window, “When I lost my bondmate, I never thought that I would feel this way again, I thought that I could hold myself above it… I can’t allow myself to act on this. No matter how much I want to.”

“So… you do want to.”

“I do.”

Shepard’s eyes close. Samara wishes she could brush her hand, just once, across the cheek that her eyelashes fall on. She hopes that one day someone else will let Shepard know that the scars across her face that followed her from the afterlife are beautiful. When Shepard stands up, Samara resists the urge to move in front of her and kneel, to swear a different oath.

“I won’t push you, Samara. I’m sorry if I’ve put you in an uncomfortable position. Excuse me.”

Samara watches her leave. In a ridiculous Justicar comic or Citadel movie, she might stand up and rush to Shepard to grab her arm at the last moment. She can imagine it perfectly; her eyes will fall to Shepard’s lips, and they’ll understand each other completely for at least one moment. For the rest of her life, she will have one kiss to remember. She at least will know what it’s like to hold her in her arms.

In this life, she takes a deep breath as soon as the door closes.

\---

According to Alliance statistics, Shepard has about ten more years. Samara gives a single prayer to the Goddess, who had once given her so much and who had stood by and let it all fall away over years, that she will see her again before then.


End file.
